“I only wanted to tell you something really important.” I jump onto my feet and out of hitting range.

“And what’s that?”

“Umm we’re having breakfast with my parents in half an hour.” I give her a shifty smile.

“James!” she shrieks, then runs around doing all of the stuff girls like to do in the morning, including kick me in the shins every time she walks by.

“You should be glad I told you at all,” I say about ten minutes later as she walks in from her shower, wincing and rubbing my leg.

Lily whirls to face me. “Yes, thank you!” she says in a hysteric voice, pulling a T-shirt over her head. “James, this is big! Big! Not take-half-an-hour-to-get-ready big, but big big!”

“Aww, come on, Lils,” I try to reassure her, “it’ll be fine.”

“But what if they hate me?” she wails, grabbing her wand to blow her hair dry with magic.

“They won’t,” I promise. “How could anyone hate you?”

I get a glare and muttered sentence that sounds suspiciously like a curse for this very sweet comment.

Pfft.

“James,” she says, struggling to sound calm, “I don’t like being hated. It makes me upset. And if I don’t look great when I meet them for the first time, your parents will think that I don’t think meeting them is a big deal. And they won’t like me.”

“Lily,” I say firmly, putting my hands on her shoulders to stop her nervous bouncing, “it’ll be fine. I promise.”

“But how to do you know?” she demands, eyes filled with worry.

“I just do,” I say easily.

She smiles at this and shakes her head. “Ah, James, it doesn’t always work out how you want it to.”

“But I usually get my way in the end.” I kiss the top of her head. She puts her arms around my neck, pressing her face into my shoulder.

“It’s very nice to meet you too.” She gestures to the table with a smile. “Oh, come on, I won’t bite. Sit, both of you!”

We sit. Lily takes a sip of the water in front of her, eyes flicking to my face.

“It’ll be fine,” I mouth.

She looks away. I know the sign. She’s not too sure.

Lily

Merlin, I could kill James for this! His mum seems nice enough, though she’ll probably end up hating me by the end of breakfast.

He doesn’t understand! I am not very good with parents. When I was eight, I had this boyfriend (yeah… it was that little kid deal) and one time I went over to his house to play in his sandbox. He felt like having juice so I went inside to get it and ended up getting sand in the carpet. His mum didn’t let me come over after that.

And okay, that was almost ten years ago. So I probably still shouldn’t be paranoid. But still. Vernon’s parents didn’t like me either (though with what their son was telling them about me, I don’t think it’s a surprise).

The restaurant is nice enough. It reminds me of the Victorian age, for whatever reason, even though it looks nothing like a Victorian age restaurant. The colours decorating it are light pink and yellow, along with sky blue in places. There’s white frill everywhere.

It almost makes me want to sick up.

James’s dad comes back soon, a cup of coffee in his hand. He looks an awful lot like James, with dark hair and a teasing smile, but his voice is much deeper-sounding when he speaks.

“And for the record, I’m Margaret. Don’t worry about those two – you learn to put up with them after awhile,” she says fondly.

I smile and nod again. “I’m sure.”

James

We talk for awhile and everything is going great. Perfect, actually. Lily couldn’t be getting on better with my parents. I can tell they love her, thank Merlin. I didn’t want to worry her earlier, but my mum can act quite standoffishly to people she dislikes.

After lunch, we say goodbye and Lily and I walk around the town, looking through shops and such.

“Let’s go here,” I say excitedly, tugging on Lily’s hand to get her to stop walking.

She follows the line of my gaze to the Quidditch shop and sighs. “Oh, James…”

“C’mon, Lils, please?” I grin at her. “Just for a few minutes. Then we can go wherever you want.”

“I.e. home?” she asks hopefully.

I sigh at her mockingly. “Way to be a damper, Lily. Way-to-go.”

She smiles at me and kisses my cheek. “Oh, alright, James. We can go.”

“Thank you!” I pull her into my arms and kiss her.

She laughs and pushes away. “Okay, okay! Just let’s hurry.”

We go into the store and the bell up top dings. The girl at the counter looks up at us then, deciding we aren’t particularly interesting (I’m sorry, lady, but if Sirius and I went in to shops dressed as clowns every time, it would get boring), flicks her eyes back down to her magazine.

“Look at this!” I exclaim, dragging Lily by the hand over to the Quidditch balls section. “Padded Bludgers! That’s brilliant!” I give her a cocky grin. “They’ll come in handy for teaching our child how to play, don’t you think?”

“Oh, Merlin, James.” She shakes her head, smiling, and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t get so ahead of yourself.”

I make a face at her. “Ahead of myself? And I’m doing that how?”

She leans up and kisses my cheek. “We need a child before we can even begin to think of teaching them to play Quidditch, Jamie. And being married before that happens would be great, too.”

I smile and whisper to her, “Soon.”

She shakes her head at me again, grinning. “Alright, let’s just get this over with. And no baby shopping until there’s a baby, okay?”

“Fine,” I agree, huffing, and go back to looking through the Quidditch balls.

Lily

I’m needling James along when I see her.

And I freeze up.

“I’ll be right back, okay?” I tell him, smiling vaguely and moving away without waiting for his response.

She looks up from the brooms as I approach, a startled look flittering across her face. Then in an instant, it’s gone and replaced with a sulky frown. “What do you want?” she asks, none-too-nicely.

“Look,” I tell her gently, “I just want to talk to you.”

“Yeah, well, you’re doing that right now and I still don’t see a point.” Through her tough bravado, though, she doesn’t look extremely fearsome, like she would have wanted to look.

“Hey,” I say softly. “Don’t be angry at me, I haven’t done anything.”

“Yet.”

“I’m not planning on it.” She sighs and shakes her head, and I continue, “You’re Geneva, right?”

“Neva,” she corrects. “But, yes, that is me.”

“Why are you really here?” I ask.

Her eyes narrow slowly and she doesn’t answer.

“I know you don’t know me. And I know you have no reason to trust me. But whatever it is, I promise I won’t tell if you don’t want me to.”

I give a laugh. “Oh, I doubt anything can surprise me now,” thinking, of course, how I went from hating to loving James in the course of a few months.

She frowns. “Look, Lily. You seem nice enough and, well, I guess I would tell you under other circumstances, but…”

“Alright,” I say comfortingly, knowing that she has to trust me before she tells me. “Well, at least tell me where you really are staying.”

She exhales, a small smile on her face. “I was at an inn last night,” she admits.

“Are you planning on staying there tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“You can come back with me. I have a house with a few of my friends.”

She hesitates for a few moments, then gives a small nod. “As long as it doesn’t put you out, I guess.”

I refrain from doing a victory dance. “No, of course not.”

“Alright,” she agrees.

I grin and say, “Good! Come meet my fiancé,” and take her over to James, but I’m thinking, For a person who can’t trust me, she sure did accept the offer easily.

James

“So she’s not a relation? You’re sure?” Lily asks me for like the millionth time as we lie in bed later that night.

I groan and roll over. “Yes, I am sure. I have never met her in my life.”

She frowns. “That’s so strange. I mean, she has your eyes and the same colour hair, and I’d bet if you were a girl you would look an awful lot like that too.”

I shrug. “Lils, can’t you just let it go?”

“No!” she exclaims. “It’s too strange for me to let it go.”

I take her hand and kiss it. “Then at least do me a favor and wait until tomorrow to figure it out, okay?”

“Okay,” she agrees reluctantly, though she sounds nonplused about it.

I shut my eyes and instantly fall asleep.

A/N: Ehhh, I don't like this extremely much. It didn't seem funny to me. Well, it wasn't funny. And the more I thought about the idea, the more I realised it probably wasn't a great one from the start. So the story will probably be kind of short, only a few more chapters most likely. I'm debating whether or not to just delete it and let OoMH end how it did, which I rather liked. What do you guys think?
Sorry if like the last half or so is poorly written. My brother has decided that the computer room is the only room he can watch TV in, so I was struggling through this while he was watching Scooby Doo and Pirates Ahoy or something like that. Blehhh.